Donald Trump Gifted Xi Jinping A Bald Eagle Statue At White House Dinner

Yuri Gripas - Pool via CNP / MEGAYuri Gripas - Pool via CNP / MEGA

Donald Trump presented Chinese President Xi Jinping with a detailed bald eagle statue during a formal state dinner at the White House.

The president, who has made giving and receiving gifts a regular part of his approach, said he and his wife, Melania Trump, helped design the statue.

Xi visited Washington for a three-day state summit with Trump to manage bilateral relations and discuss major global issues, including artificial intelligence. However, the two sides reached no major agreement on the emerging technology.

Donald Trump And Melania Help Design Xi Jinping’s Bald Eagle Gift

Donald Trump presented Xi Jinping with a bald eagle statue during a lavish state dinner Thursday at the White House, according to the BBC.

The three-foot-tall sculpture was displayed on a podium in the East Room during the event. Trump described the gift as an emblem representing “the free and soaring spirit of America.”

Unveiling the gift near the end of his remarks, he said he and Melania had helped design the piece and hoped it would find a special place in Beijing.

The event was the talk of the town and drew several US tech executives, including Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, OpenAI’s Sam Altman, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, and Tesla’s Elon Musk.

Trump’s Gift Exchange With Xi Jinping Carries Diplomatic Weight

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The gift exchange came as part of the multi-day meeting aimed at easing trade tensions and building a personal relationship between the leaders of both world superpowers.

Exchanging gifts during state visits has long been a diplomatic tradition designed to signal goodwill between nations.

However small a gift may be, experts have suggested it can play a meaningful role in improving relations between the two leaders.

“They’re going to discuss all of these complicated issues,” Daniel Kritenbrink, a partner at The Asia Group, said, per the BBC. “But at the end of the day, these are still two human beings.

“So that personal relationship means something,” he noted. “I think the gift exchange is one key part of that.”

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Donald Trump Says Ties With Xi Jinping Are Better Than Ever

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Meanwhile, Trump heaped praise on Xi Jinping and claimed during a dinner toast that the two had “never gotten along better.”

“President Xi and I both understand we represent different systems, but the ties between our people endure, and we’ve never gotten along better,” Trump said. He added that “together, we can continue to build a relationship that promotes prosperity and security for future generations.”

Returning the gesture, the Chinese president said that “President Trump has pledged to make America great again” and that “China is committed to achieving great national rejuvenation.”

“These two goals are both ambitious and can surely be mutually reinforcing,” Xi noted.

Trump And Xi Jinping Extend Trade Truce As Key Issues Remain

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Despite their glowing praise for each other, little progress appeared to have been made on key issues affecting US-China relations, including trade tensions and AI regulation.

Reports suggest both leaders discussed the wars in Ukraine and Iran, as well as Taiwan’s status, during a 90-minute closed-door meeting on Thursday.

Trump later confirmed that the Iran war came up but declined to share further details.

“We had a great meeting. We had a really great meeting. Great for the farmers. Great for everybody,” he said.

The Trump administration announced that the two sides had agreed to a two-month extension of a trade truce, guaranteeing continued relief from heavy tariffs on both sides.

Ro Khanna Slams Trump Over Missed AI Opportunity With Xi Jinping

Francis Chung – Pool via CNP / MEGA

However, the two leaders seemingly failed to find common ground on AI regulation despite widespread fears about the technology’s existential threat to humanity.

That did not sit well with many, including Ro Khanna, the top Democrat on the House of Representatives’ select committee on China. He slammed the president for failing to take the lead on such a delicate matter.

“It was such a layup,” Khanna said, per The Guardian. “If [Trump] had just said, look, we have established technical working groups and we’ve agreed to a framework that has called for DeepSeek and Moonshot and Alibaba to sit down with Anthropic and OpenAI and Gemini and with technical experts and they’re going to commit to at least a pause on any self-improving AI, he could have looked like he was a statesman taking the lead.”

“I believe Xi Jinping would have agreed to at least some of the technical working groups. But he [Trump] didn’t want to; he has no interest in doing that,” he added.

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